Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice, A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

The incomparable Cole Porter's songs were the essence of wit and sophistication.

Famously wealthy, his life was marked by tragedy, courage, sorrow and secrecy.

In Cole Porter, a biography by William McBrien.

Let's meet my guest.

Bill Firstenberger.

What's up tonight, Bill?

Anything goes today, Gail.

Hey, we're ready.

It's party.

Party, party, isn't it?

Oh, it is indeed.

I'm going to be preparing a prawn cocktail with my own homemade sauce.

And what are you doing?

Well, let's see.

hors d'oeuvres assorti.

Assorted.

Assorted assorted hors d'oeuvres.

Several.

We'll hear.

We're going to have some lobster, creamed lobster.

We'll have some sardines.

And we're going to have stuffed eggs, deviled eggs.

And then we're going to have stuffed potatoes.

So we're ready to party, aren't we?

One more thing.

Yes.

Pop the cork s'il vous plaît.

Let's get this party started.

I tell you, this we're way behind in Cole Porter's arrangements.

But, you know, this I found was a very interesting book.

And to think this man came from Peru.

Or do they really say Peru?

I think they do say Peru.

Some folks do there.

At least I've met some.

Gosh, night and day they say Peru.

But, you know, you have me on with some regularity because we're talking about hoosier writers.

Yes.

So today we switch things up a little bit.

We're talking about a hoosier songwriter.

Yes.

The Great American Songbook and Cole Porter being a part of that.

So we couldn't pass that up.

No, he is he's a gem of the of America.

And what I discovered, too, were these this life in which he hey, there was a lot of that in his life wasn't there.

Was a lot.

Of a lot of popping of corks and cocktails and, you know, we found we learned a lot about him that maybe he didn't know before.

What was his family like, his life in Peru?

Well, he came from wealth.

That's that's really one of the most important things to to recognize and think about is that he came from a family of means and that also his grandfather, who I think was the initiator of most of that wealth, didn't always approve of everything that Cole wanted to do with his music career and his personal life.

And he had no problem keeping grandpa in the dark.

Yes.

And it was probably good for him to keep him in the dark because he did have kind of a dark life.

We should start with a toast.

To Cole Porter.

Yes.

And yes, absolutely.

To our to our home guest.

We're so glad you're here for the opening of Anything Goes, which I think was one of his most popular.

It plays.

That's not a play.

Musical musicals.

Yes.

Well, that song really defined the jazz era in the jazz age.

Didn't it?

There were breaking of norms and so many different revolutions and things happening in the world and in America and in popular culture.

And Cole Porter just kind of stepped right into that doorway and, you know, put, put songs by it, put it to music.

You that's very well said.

You know, this starts in the twenties.

He was born 1891.

In the twenties, he starts writing, plays, musicals.

But before let's let's go back to he has his life in Indiana.

It doesn't say too much about his life.

It talks a little bit about his family.

Right.

And his mother.

He adored his mother and she adored him.

She kind of went around the grandfather and we don't hear much about the father.

Oh, that was a devil.

May care.

Well, okay.

What I'm doing is we're we're going to be doing our prom cocktail.

You know, you can buy it in the store in the frozen section, and it's already precooked and it looks so beautiful and nice, those prawns.

But I think that that I wanted to go the next step.

So we got the raw prawns okay and we're going to show how you cook raw prawns into a prawn cocktail.

And believe me, it's so much better.

You're going to love it.

I'll be the judge of that?

So I just put in half a lemon and I'm going to put in about, oh, a teaspoon or so of I like Himalayan salt.

Oh I do too.

And just a few peppercorns.

You don't have to really.

That's enough.

You just knock seven or eight, whatever.

Smell that.

So now we want to bring this to a rolling boil.

A rolling boil.

And while we're waiting for that to roll and boil, I just wanted to say that his mother wants him to go to a finishing school, not a finishing school for girls, but a private school.

Yes.

And he goes to Worcester and he's there and and then he goes off to Yale right now where.

He writes 300 songs.

Yeah, hundred songs.

And his four years at Yale.

And you know, it really changed his life.

But what was the key ingredient that pushed him always into the public eye, into a party?

And he became the focal point at the piano?

Oh, yes, of course.

Well, the the instrument of composition and and music writing.

And so he was a natural.

Yeah.

He would just go right to the piano and everybody knew him.

He became instantly, instantaneously popular on both schools.

He wrote he wrote a couple of school songs for Yale that they.

Their fight.

Song.

Yeah.

They started in something called Bull or something.

It's another Right, right.

Another song they sang.

Well, he was very interested in doing all these plays with his friends.

So there were very some very famous people that went to school with him.

There was, let's see, there was Clifton Webb and who?

Well, let's see, um, Archibald MacLeish and Dean Acheson.

He was Secretary of State.

So he met these people.

And of course, he drew everybody in with his personality and his singing and his piano playing.

So whose.

Naturalism.

It was?

Charisma.

Charisma?

Yeah, absolutely.

And so he did.

You want to talk a little bit about when he then was encouraged to go to law school by his grandfather?

Oh, yes.

And what happened?

Well, he said, sure, I'll.

I'm not I did.

That and wasn't too excited.

But he told his grandfather that he was going to law school.

He enrolled for a little while in his professors at Harvard Law School.

Suggested that he study music.

Yes.

Yes.

Music was his thing and he'd be quite good.

And he changed.

He changed, unbeknownst to his grandfather, who was footing the bill, kind of released his law coursework and went into music, and his grandfather was none the wiser.

Well, and he studied composition and he studied all kinds of technical things.

And, you know, so he gets to law school and he starts composing and his his musicals get on Broadway.

And three of the people who always seem to appear in his plays are Ethel Merman, Bert Lahr, Bob Hope.

And I don't know who the other one was.

Jimmy Durante.

So I think they were kind of what what would you call that kind of music in play?

It was kind of corny.

Yeah.

Pop culture.

I think that was another reason why his grandfather did not approve of his music career was because you know, this is like being a rock star, you know?

Oh, it wasn't serious enough.

It was something that just wasn't viewed as being a worthwhile.

Yes, you're going to be a musician.

From Wealth and Means.

Yes.

Here are my raw, uncooked prawns, and I've turned the water off and so I'm just going to run.

Well, he's doing that.

I'm making my deviled eggs.

So just ask any of these guys.

And it's very important that the water is off and often going out on your own.

No oh thank you.

All right.

And then you cover it and we wait.

And it's very important that you don't keep the prawns on heat or continue to let them boil.

Just let them cook in the hot water off three or 4 minutes.

Right.

For that's many probably about six or seven.

At the most.

We don't want them to turn to rubber.

That's what happens if you overcook shrimp.

But if that happens today we will not say a word.

It will be perfect prawn.

Perfect prawns.

Yes.

And I am making some hors d'oeuvres And since I don't have any caviar, I'm chopping up some black olives to make them look like caviar.

And then I have little circles of green olives, and I like that.

And I am just getting a little bit of water together and some more ice, because after the prawns are cooked, we're going to put them into an ice bath.

All right?

And that's the part of the to to kind of seal in the juices and and keep them tender.

And to stop cooking.

To stop.

Yes.

Yes.

All of that.

Okay.

I've started on my my deviled eggs with my faux caviar and some green olives and here's some lobster with some crackers here.

Oh, and that's divine over here.

And since this is just opening cans, I didn't go fishing for them.

I just decided to put them out and let them saturate the studio with the aroma of oysters and sardines.

So you are going.

You're preparing the bath.

Look at that.

Yeah, that.

bowl is with.

Need a little more water.

A little more water.

Okay, So he.

He doesn't quite flunk out of law school.

He's starting to.

He's starting to compose, and he's composing many naughty songs that he loves to sing at private parties.

And it's a little bit like Dorothy Parker and her group at the Algonquin.

I mean, they they were more snide and sarcastic.

These are kind of funny, but they do get a little over the top now.

We're going to just take a minute so your prawns.

Through the ice bath.

And then when we come back, I'll be doing my sauce.

And we're going to do a list of the productions, the most famous productions of Cole Porter.

And we'll be right back.

And here we are.

We're still preparing for our big party tonight.

We are indeed.

But look at that.

The prawns have cooked and it's time to put them into their ice bath.

Ice.

They had ice bath.

And what does that do?

It kind of seals in the juices.

So they they don't continue to cook and they don't get rubbery, like you said.

So I'm just going to continue to fish these guys out and then I'll do that to start on my sauce.

You know, I like that idea of putting a lemon in there, half a lemon while you're cooking and that extra.

Well, I'm going to use the lemon on my final.

Is this a Firstenberger?

Now I wish I could say it was, but no, I learned how to do this.

It's now it's not a developed skill.

Okay.

I think we have them all.

You've got them.

All right?

You do what you need to do.

And I just want to say I'm cutting some more.

I cooked boiled, some little potatoes, marbles, and I always cut down a little bit off the bottom because you don't want it tipping and falling over.

So I will do some more of the cheese and I am using a set cheese.

Normally I'd use sour cream, but I thought, let's do something different.

You know, Anything goes, right?

Anything goes.

Yeah, that's anything got.

So that's our motto now anything goes.

So I started with a base of just Heinz ketchup, which by the way, is rather disappointed I couldn't get an original glass bottle because I'm an anti squeeze bottle type of guy, but I couldn't find any.

I didn't know that about you.

But it's a little known secret.

Yeah.

And then a little dash of Lee and parents Worcestershire and of course, some cracked pepper.

Probably about not quite a full tablespoon of brown sugar.

I like to put ginger in just about everything.

So a little dash of ginger.

Ginger is good, you know, It really is.

My also favorite secret ingredient.

A little couple of drops of Frank's red hot sauce.

I bet you're partying all weekend long.

You and your wife.

You're having shrimp, aren't you?

And it wouldn't be Bill Firstenberger or without maple syrup.

What was that?

And you party all weekend long?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, sure.

Anybody who's been to my house knows that's probably not the case.

But, hey, you know how to party.

And we're just going to gently.

This is really whisk this together.

We're having a nice little hors d'oeuvres bar here.

And if you have some friends in, you don't have to always have dinner.

Just say we're having early hors d'oeuvres and we'll have some.

Are duff, as they say in French, and we'll have a little cava.

So come on over.

We should.

It's time for.

Oh, more cava So more.

cava Cheers again.

Cava is the name for Spanish champagne.

And there was he has one play, one musical he did that had a lot of Spanish Caribbean music in it.

So that's two that it's a toast to that program.

And so he's you're already aren't you.

And maybe a. little squeeze of some lemon juice in there too.

I'll get the seed out though.

Yeah.

Let's take the seed out.. And I have to say, he and his wife were married 35 years.

And the thing is, Cole Porter preferred men.

His wife loved him.

They stayed together, They traveled separately.

They didn't always live together, but they were close companions.

For over 35 years.

She had problems with asthma, breathing.

She had to go to Arizona quite a few years in a row, and maybe every year she would go someplace dry.

So and he then moved on to California.

And that's where his life got a bit wild and a little out of hand.

And that luxury was always part of the Cole Porter lifestyle.

We didn't talk about their time when they lived in Venice and they rented a palace in Venice that at the time was $4,000 a month, which in today's dollars would be $64,000 a month.

And he would throw these extravagant parties and he wasn't necessarily spending money that he had made through his songwriting and he was spending inheritance money from his grandfather.

Who wants to be a millionaire.

Yes, I do.

He did.

Yeah, he did.

And he loved it.

And he shared it and he had parties and he and Elsa maxwell brought Venice back on the map is the party town.

And then they bought a place in Paris, and then they had a place in the east, I think it was in New York.

And so they they were everywhere.

Everybody wanted to meet him.

I mean, they were never alone.

And he would call people and say, Oh, come and join us tonight for dinner.

We're just having a little supper and you'll be with us.

The only ones and they would come, Everybody drop everything to go and have dinner with Cole Porter.

And, you know, how would you like to be like that Sounds cool.

You are.

You are.

You are.

This sounds good to me.

I know you have to talk about the fact that he had a life changing accident.

Oh, let's talk about that.

It's very sad.

Is he?

You know, of that era?

Yeah.

One snuck out on me.

Well, pick it up.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

Brave person.

That's your prawn!

Yeah.

My.

Yes.

Let's talk about what happened because he was never the same after that.

He was not.

Yeah, he had a riding accident, horse riding, and, you know, again, a wealthy and elite activity and thing to do, but the horse fell on him and crushed his legs badly.

So much so that he never walked properly ever again.

And he was in a lot of pain.

And so that led to painkiller addictions and more alcohol.

And and actually, I noticed in the book here the photographs of him from a young man to an old man sent some people you can kind of see that person all the way through.

He almost looked like an entirely different person by the end of his life.

Well, he was very sad.

It was such a painful it was a painful experience.

And at first the doctors told him, you should have your leg, both legs amputated.

Oh, no, he couldn't do that.

I mean, that was too much of a jump.

And so probably ten years later, he did have them both amputated and they told it was never going to be well, the marrow of his bone that have been ruined in this accident.

And so pain was just with him all the time.

And I think I need a little bit more cava And the the irony of that, when you think about it, is, of course, that, you know, here's somebody who brought joy.

Yeah.

With his music to everyone and all of his songs were kind of flippant and airy and nothing was a downer.

And yet he had this dramatic side of sorrow and pain in his life and in the fact that he couldn't be himself as a homosexual.

I mean, it was illegal.

Yes.

For him to go to jail for just being himself.

And so the fact that he married and had this loving relationship with a person who understood him is remarkable.

I think it is remarkable.

And I think I was amazed by all these details and all these friends that came to see him.

He would he'd still went on trips to like Egypt or Morocco, and they would get him on a donkey and they would pull him up.

And.

Yeah.

And he had a he had a lot of people that followed him and helped him.

And I don't know what his last big number was that he composed.

Well, Kiss Me.

Kate was a huge success.

That was that was that.

Wasn't the last.

Big musical that he made in the 1950s.

And he won the very first Tony Award.

Yes.

For Kiss Me.

Kate.

So in.

The Shakespeare based on Shakespeare.

It's based on The Taming of the Shrew.

Yes.

Yes.

And so, yeah, I mean, Indiana has a lot to be proud of in Cole Porter.

Yeah.

And, and so if you've ever been to Peru or Peru, Indiana, he is buried at the cemetery there.

And it's a very unusual and sort of idyllic setting.

That's cemetery.

I encourage anybody driving through that part of the state to take a few minutes and go see it.

It's not the tombstones.

Do not say Porter They say.

COLE So people are looking for Porter and they don't find it.

So that's a hint if you decide to go to the cemetery in Peru.

In fact, you can make quite a tour of Indiana.

You can see where Jimmy, Jim James.

Oh, James Dean.

James Dean Sure.

And the whole.

There are some wonderful sights to see all across.

This.

And Jean Porter.

Jean Straton Porter has two historic sites, one in Noble County and the Limberlost swamp.

And so we're just going to keep talking about Indiana authors here.

and writers.

Yes.

Now, we just have a minute before we go to our next segment.

And I just want to say we have we've worked on an hors d'oeuvres table and a presentation and we have our cava.

Remember, Spanish champagne.

That's what it is.

Brought me here in a tux.

And look.

Oh, that shrimp cocktail or prawn cocktail and cocktail sauce.

And you don't have a spot on your foodie apron.

Living dangerously today and survived.

Well, they needed help.

So, you know, we came in and now we're going to the party.

We're going to get ready and we want you to join us.

We'll be right back Oh, I so enjoy these parties, don't you?

I do indeed.

It's it is absolutely marvelous.

And we just want to kind of recap what we are serving tonight or today, whatever.

So talk about what you brought.

Well, I made a prawn cocktail from raw shrimp.

Yes.

Nothing to nothing to put down the ring of shrimp that you can buy in your grocery store.

That's perfectly okay.

But if you want to take it to the next level, this is the way to do it.

This is the way to do it.

Yes.

And what did you make?

Well, let's see.

We have some deviled eggs.

We have some stuffed potatoes, little baby potatoes or marble potatoes, Sardines, oysters.

And then we have a lobster salad and our cava, our Spanish champagne.

And it's marvelous, isn't it?

It is.

Just like Cole Porter was.

Marvelous.

Marvelous.

Absolutely.

Now, tell me what you were struck by or what you really enjoyed in this book.

You know, I learned a lot about Cole Porter.

I think that my biggest takeaway is that for somebody who is thought of, for making all these sort of happy go lucky and flippant songs, that he had a great deal of courage personally to persevere through, through some of, you know, his his own personal life struggles.

And then definitely, you know, toward the end of his life with the the accident and the pain that he endured.

You know, he lived after that accident for almost 20 years.

Yeah, not quite.

But but that's a long.

It is to be in pain.

Yeah, it absolutely is.

I never realized.

That longer than 20 years.

Was it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

37 to 60.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And yes.

And so I think he had great friends.

He loved music to entertain people.

He kept entertaining, he kept writing.

And so we say to Cole Porter, We're glad you're from our state.

Absolutely.

And we wish he'd come back.

And the rest of you know, we're glad you're here.

And thank you for watching.

Remember, good food, good friends, good books, good memories make for an excellent life.

And thank you, Bill.

Thank you Gail for having me back.

It's always a pleasure.

It's always fun.

And so we'll see you next time.

Cheers.

Cheers.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.